However, as the vertigo lifted, I went back to the studio, where I had odd bits and pieces of paintings from Pine Creek left to finish.

The two Pine Creek Gorge paintings (above and below) were begun on a foggy, rainy afternoon, on-site in Pennsylvania, and soothed in the Oregon studio; both were started at the Bradley Wales lookout, just over the hill from where my mother spent some of her most memorable moments of childhood.

from Bradley Wales Lookout

18 x 24″, oil on Masonite, 2012

When I’m recovering from one of the prolonged bouts of vertigo, and have no new large projects to pursue, I sometimes dive into abstract or semi-abstract work.Â Some of what I did in January and February 2013 doesn’t precisely fit the Pine Creek Green landscape theme but a couple of small pieces seemed to come out of bits of PA left in my psyche.

Fog, 2012

12 x 16″, oil on Masonite, 2012

Somehow Pine Creek 1

10 x 20, mixed media, 2013

Somehow Pine Creek 2

10 x 20″, mixed media, 2013

The two large canvases that I began in the back yard at Cedar Pines hung in the living room for me to ponder while I lay on the couch, and finally were rehung in the studio to be worked on further. They deserve their own post if only in honor of their size.Â –June

June
These are wonderful. “Rain on Pine Creek Gorge from Bradley Wales” is in a palette that would be perfect in my bedroom…now to save coins so I can be ready to snatch up one of your beautiful works. And, “Somehow Pine Creek 1”; well it, too, capture my attention. Your work with paint is making leaps into the world of fantastic; what a thrill it is to follow along as you expand your creative endeavors. Kristin

Thanks, Kristin. The palette is a bit strange, but that’s what it wanted to be. Sometimes I just have to give in to the paint instead of struggling with it:-) I too was pleased with the funny abstracts — they are based on various materials, but as Jer said, they too looked like Pine Creek.

I thought it was the greens, but you noted the meshing of the colors, Barbara. This partly is a result of the glazing that I was doing — I was doing it to the canvas pieces, but along the way, I kept using the left-over transparent paint on the masonite boards. And before that, I was working on Matisse, on the little side-table? Go figure!